Darkwood Manor Page 9

“Stay here,” he told Haden before taking off.

  The driver’s door was visible, the passenger’s wasn’t. The front end was tilted into a steep ravine.

  Donovan half slid, half ran down a long incline. Wind and rain slapped at him. Bits of woodland debris blew in his face. If procuring Darkwood Manor was his goal, whoever had taken Isabella would need her alive. If not…

  He locked down a bolt of panic before it could take hold and skidded down the last few feet of the embankment. With his gun pointed skyward he approached the back of the van.

  He saw nothing and no one inside. Either Isabella’s abductor had gotten out, or he was waiting in ambush. The only option Donovan had was to move in carefully and be prepared to act.

  He swung in the driver’s door with the trigger half squeezed.

  The lone movement came from the floor in the rear. He recognized Isabella’s blond hair and working his way in deeper felt for a pulse in her neck. Strong and steady.

  His initial rush of relief turned to icy rage. He smelled the trace chemical and scanned the seats in front of him. There was no one else here, no keys, no open door, no indication of the direction her abductor had taken.

  “She all right?”

  His uncle’s distraught face appeared behind him.

  “She’s alive.” Donovan swept the area immediately around the van, spotted something black through the trees. Pressing a kiss to Isabella’s forehead, he reached for the back-up gun he kept strapped above his ankle, handed it to Haden, then shut his emotions down and let his instincts take over.

  “Try and revive her,” he said. “Then take her to the hospital clinic.”

  “Why would he kidnap her?” Clearly shaken, Haden patted Isabella’s hand.

  “I don’t know.” Donovan exited through the back door. Adrenaline surged in his system. He kept his eyes focused forward. “But I’m sure as hell going to find out.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I didn’t see his face, Donovan. I heard a sound and suddenly there he was.”

  A headache from the chloroform throbbed in Isabella’s temples. She circled the table, pushing on the pain points while Haden baked to settle his nerves. Donovan, who’d straddled one of the kitchen chairs, checked his gun and looked quietly dangerous.

  Why that should excite her, she couldn’t say. Well, actually, she could, but now wasn’t the time.

  Rain and hail blew against the cottage walls. Haden donned his potholders to slide a mile-high apple pie from the oven. He pushed a raspberry-custard tart into her hands on his way to the cooling rack.

  “Darkwood’s riddled with secret passageways,” he said. “Got the floor plan of the house around here somewhere. I’ve done the numbers, and I’m telling you they don’t add up. Measured from the outside, there should be more than twelve thousand square feet, yet the inside total’s under ten. Those two thousand–plus feet have to be somewhere. I say they’re between the walls.”

  Donovan shoved a fresh clip into his gun. “What about the caves Gordie told Isabella about? Real or not?”

  “Probably real.” Haden shook a warning potholder at Isabella. “Raspberries are good for concussions.”

  “But he didn’t hit—”

  “Cures a chloroform hangover, too. Unless you’d rather go to the hospital like Donovan wanted.”

  Isabella bit into the still-warm tart, then broke off a piece of the crust. “The guy might have said something as I was going under, but I’m not sure about that, either. I was trying to fight him off and not breathe at the same time.” The look on Donovan’s face brought the first glimmer of humor since she’d woken up in his truck. “You’re still kicking yourself that he got away, aren’t you? The fact that he had a huge head start doesn’t play into it for you, huh?”

  “I should have had him.”

  She sighed. “Katie disappeared in a matter of seconds. Should I blame myself for that?” Rounding his chair, she bent over to whisper, “You’re not Superman, Black.”

  “You got the van,” Haden called from the pantry. “Won’t that tell you something?”

  “Not if he’s smart.”

  Isabella was glad to see Donovan roll some of the tension from his shoulders. She fought an urge to bite his earlobe and deliberately put some distance between them.

  Cloudy thoughts coupled with an über-hot man in a lethal mood weren’t conducive to smart choices. True, sex with Donovan was bound to be spectacular, but priorities were priorities, after all. She went back to massaging her temples. She really needed to stop thinking about him.

  “I wonder if it was Gordie who sprayed that warning on the wall?” she mused. “If he also shot an arrow into the door, it would have been stupid of him to tell me he’d gone running on Ridge Road.”

  Haden snorted. “Stupid or cunning.”

  When the phone rang, Donovan reached over to pick up. There was a long pause before he asked, “How bad?” He glanced at Haden. “Yeah, I’ll tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” Haden set fisted hands on his hips. “Did my pastry chef quit?”

  “Not as far as I know. The Mystic Inn had a kitchen fire.”

  “What? Was anyone hurt?”

  “Only the equipment. They were fully booked for tonight.”

  “I know.” The big man waved a potholder at Isabella. “It’s bridge night… Don’t say it,” he warned his nephew.

  “They need another venue.”

  “Cave’s got its own group of regulars.”

  “You also have a dining room upstairs.”

  “What about staff?”

  “I can help,” Isabella offered. “I’ve worked tables before. I’ve also had venues snatched out from under me.”

  Donovan tucked his gun away as a disgruntled Haden took the handset into the pantry. “Consider yourself a temporary server, Isabella.”

  “Why do I sense disapproval?”

  Standing, he started forward, his eyes steady on hers. “This isn’t your typical bridge club. These people don’t play cards after dinner, they hold séances, every Wednesday night through October.”

  “Huh. Can’t say I’ve ever waited a séance before.”

  When he stopped less than a foot away, it took all her will-power not to grab his hair and yank his mouth onto hers. But she’d done that before, and given the strained atmosphere in the cottage, they might very well wind up making out in the middle of the kitchen floor. “Wonder how Haden would feel about that?” she murmured with an abstract smile.

  Donovan’s eyes sparkled. “He’d probably leave by the side door and let us go at it.”

  Either he could read minds or her expression was revealing way too much. Whatever the case, she didn’t falter. “Your call, Black. Do we help your uncle, or have wild, abandoned sex on his kitchen floor?”

  With a shadow falling over him from the side, she could no longer see his eyes. But she felt his breath on her lips as he lowered his head. “Better to go with the odds.”

  Unable to resist, she hooked her arms around his neck and moved her hips against him. “Meaning I’m safer at a séance than I would be with you?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  He touched his mouth to hers. “On whether or not Aaron decides to show.”

  DEEP IN THE BOWELS OF the manor, he listened to water drip as he prowled and seethed and plotted. Too many things had slipped out of his control. He could work around the smaller problems, but not the big one, not the one that had blindsided him.

  He wiggled his fingers, felt his temper take hold. He’d had her today. He’d chosen the moment and caught her off guard. Then, wham, enter the wild card, and his perfect plan had been shot to hell.

  Eyes closed, he lifted his face to the stones overhead and made a solemn vow. Like his ancestor before him, he would claw his way back to middle ground, rebalance and begin again.

  Oh, Isabella might very well still die. She just wouldn’t be doing it alone.

  “YOU MIGHT HAVE ME
NTIONED that this bridge-the-gap-between-worlds club was made up of grandmothers who use Ouija boards and tarot cards and take turns writing human-interest columns for the local newspaper.”

  Donovan led the way into the manor’s cellar. “I might have. But then you wouldn’t have wanted to go, and every grandmother there was delighted to meet you.”

  “Yes, I’m gaining quite a reputation as the object of Aaron Dark’s wrath. Remind me again why that’s a good thing?”

  “Because the more people who recognize you, the more careful whoever’s after you will need to be.”

  She considered arguing, but held off. It was getting late, and they’d already been delayed by several hours.

  First thing that morning, Orry had called to say a Jane Doe matching Katie’s description had been hospitalized last night in Slade’s Head, a town halfway between Mystic Harbor and Bangor. The woman couldn’t remember her name or where she’d been going when she’d been struck by a car on the highway leading into town.

  It wasn’t much, Isabella reflected, but what could she do? She had to know.

  The drive inland had taken the better part of two hours, courtesy of a construction detour. Add in an overworked, sour-faced police chief who hated the FBI, and the complications multiplied. If Isabella hadn’t managed to steal a look at the mystery woman through the hospital door, they might still be there.

  Jane Doe did indeed have dark hair, but she also had a nose ring, a mole on her cheek and a long scar across her right forearm. Details, Isabella suspected, Orry Lucas had been well aware of when he’d phoned.

  Back in Mystic Harbor, rain drizzled from a gunmetal-gray sky. Haden insisted that exploring the rock near the edge of Dark Ridge was too dangerous in a high wind, so the cellar had won by default.

  Donovan switched on a battery lamp. As some of the deeper shadows dissipated, Isabella searched the earth and stone floor for a trapdoor. “Why did you become a fed rather than a chef like your uncle?”

  “Not a fan of squirrel pie, I guess.” He made a subtle head motion. “Try the back wall. It’s closer to the water.”

  She forged a path through a sea of rotted crates and barrels. “Is shooting your only job?”

  “No more than asking questions is yours.”

  She’d walked into that one, but conversation was her best weapon against fear, and ever since they’d arrived, she’d felt as if some sinister presence was hanging over her shoulder.

  “Going to find a snake, I just know it,” she predicted under her breath. “They love dark places.”

  “So does my mother on a bad day.” Donovan handed her a second lamp. “You’re better off with a snake.”

  “Clearly, you didn’t find one in your bed when you were six years old and you’d just finished watching a movie about king cobras.”

  He regarded her from his crouch. “Someone did that to you?”

  “Right before my parents took me on a vacation to the Everglades. I don’t know who it was, but I’m sorry I mentioned it, because it’s not a memory I like to revisit.” Swinging her flashlight in an arc, she located another doorway. “This cellar has an endless supply of rooms, doesn’t it?”

  “Probably.” Donovan braced a knee on the floor. “But we might not need to look in them.”

  Giving her hair a precautionary shake for spiders, Isabella started across the floor. “Please tell me you found something.”

  A ghastly creak of hinges provided the answer as Donovan pried open a trapdoor previously concealed beneath layers of decaying boards.

  She aimed her flashlight at a cobwebbed ladder and let an apprehensive shiver slide through her. “Next stop, the Dark depths of hell.”

  SHE WASN’T FAR OFF. EVERYTHING about the passageway spoke of a subterranean horror show. In Donovan’s opinion, no one had been in this particular area for decades, possibly much longer.

  The smell of moldy wood and earth was strong, the darkness thick and unbroken. Water dribbled from a ceiling that topped out at six feet. He had to duck in several spots to avoid whacking his head on sagging crossbeams.

  At the first fork, Isabella shone her flashlight in both directions. “Left goes down, right widens as it climbs.”

  “Looks like left wins.”

  It was only the beginning. A dozen turns later, they reached a convergence that branched off in five directions.

  “We need a GPS,” Isabella remarked, then looked down. “Why’s the ground sucking at my boots?”

  “We’re close to sea level.”

  “Figured as much. And the tide comes in when?”

  A faint smile tugged on his lips. “Good question.”

  Incredulous, she raised her light to his face. “You don’t know?”

  “We can outrun an incoming tide, Isabella, as long as we don’t get lost.”

  “So, no worries then. We’ll just wait until we’re knee deep in water and hope that one of the million side tunnels we’ve spotted and or taken leads up rather than down and doesn’t dead-end like more than half the ones we’ve chosen so far.”

  He kept his eyes and flashlight moving. “Not having fun yet, huh?”

  “Let’s say this wasn’t at the top of my to-do list when I came to Mystic—what was that?” She whipped her beam around his arm.

  “A scrape. I’ve heard it twice.”

  She hissed out a breath. “You know, Black, you could be a little more alpha cop here, seeing as I’m a city girl with absolutely zero spelunking experience. There’s another scrape.”

  He drew the gun from his waistband. “Walk in front of me.”

  She didn’t argue, merely slipped around his arm and let him listen.

  He detected one scuff of rock, then another. The second one ended with a squish.

  “Hell.” A telltale click had Donovan thrusting Isabella into a narrow passage.

  The first shot hit stone and ricocheted. The second whizzed past his right arm.

  “Stay here,” he told her. “I’m going back.”

  “What? Why?” She grabbed his sleeve. “Donovan, that’s crazy!”

  Another bullet raced past. Pulling out a second gun, he pushed it into her hands. “Crazy’s what I do.” He dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “Stay low, stay quiet, stay here. Anything moves, shoot it.”

  “What if that anything is you?”

  “It won’t be,” he promised and left it to her to fill in the blanks.

  The ones involving the shooter’s objective, Isabella’s safety and his own dead body.

  SHE GROUND HER TEETH to keep them from chattering. She’d give him thirty seconds, thirty-five tops, before she did something. No idea what, but damsel in distress wasn’t an option.

  She heard three more shots in rapid succession before the passages went eerily silent.

  Water sloshed when she moved her foot. The tide was definitely coming in.

  Several seconds ticked by. The silence held. Time to move, she thought, and turning her flashlight on briefly, stole a look around the damp corner.

  Nothing scraped or squelched, and no more bullets flew past. Full darkness prevailed. The rustle of her jacket made a deafening racket. The ground water had crept up and over her boots.

  Drawing a breath, she started to step out. A stealthy swish to her left halted her. Her heart pounded; her stomach became a mass of slippery knots. Was there someone close by, or had a chunk of earth fallen from a wall?

  With her thumb on the flashlight switch, she considered her options. The feeling of being watched had grown to mammoth proportions. But how could anyone see through impenetrable darkness?

  Obvious answer: no one could. She was letting fear choke reason. She should be more worried about Donovan’s safety than her own. Why had the shooter stopped firing?

  With her gun hand on the wall, she pointed her light straight down, hit the switch—and gasped when the beam revealed a pair of boots less than four feet in front of her. Big ones, black and unmoving.

  She jumped back, snapped the
light up, then for a shocked moment simply stared. Until the man’s hands rose, and he took a step toward her.

  Panic clawed through disbelief. She splashed back into the passageway. “Donovan!”

  Stumbling on the uneven ground, she evaded the outstretched hands. Gun, she remembered, and fired a warning shot into the high shadows.

  “Donovan, there’s a—!”

  He knocked her with his shoulder, spun her face-first into the wall. Light bounced off the ancient beams. She didn’t fall, but she lost her grip on the gun.

  Strong hands on her arms wrenched her around. She rammed a fist into hard flesh, heard a whoosh of air. “Dono—”

  She broke off when the man tossed her roughly aside. As her knees hit the ground, he vanished into the darkness.

  Terrified, Isabella grabbed the gun, regained her feet and ran in the opposite direction. She was approaching a Y-shaped fork when she slammed into another hard body.

  Her knee came up in automatic defense. It would have connected if Donovan’s voice hadn’t said, “Isabella, it’s me.”

  Her muscles didn’t want to unlock, but she managed a shaky, “Thank God. I thought he’d circled back.”

  “Who?” He gave her a light shake. “Who circled back?”

  “A man. He was in that passageway back there.” Overwhelming relief gave way to sudden urgency. She snatched up the sides of his jacket. “Donovan, it was him. The man Lindsay described to Orry and me yesterday. The one who gave her Katie’s watch!”

  Questions about the mystery man’s identity and his agenda zinged through Isabella’s head. Unfortunately, the more imperative question was: Would she and Donovan escape from this hellhole before the tide rushed in and trapped them?

  Wincing as icy water slopped over the sides of her boots, she shone her light along the passageway. “At the risk of sounding pessimistic, we’re going downhill again.”

  Donovan angled his beam upward. “Trick of the eye.”

  “So the fact that the insides of my boots were dry a few minutes ago and now they’re not is irrelevant?”

  “Yeah.”

  She used frustration to block fear. “Is there some reason you’re talking in monosyllables?”

  “I’m thinking, Isabella.”